Diplomacy

AP: Support for Pro-Palestinian UN Resolution “Significantly Lower” Than Expected

A non-binding resolution introduced in the United Nations General Assembly rejecting President Donald Trump’s recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital as “null and void” passed but with “significantly lower” support than the Palestinians had hoped for, the Associated Press reported Thursday.

Every nation deserves to choose its capital or where to locate its embassies. Today 128 countries opposed recognizing these basic rights of Israel and the US. Thankfully 65 countries (9+35+21) didn’t support this folly, choosing truth over deception. #UNGApic.twitter.com/WrflT7fZJm

The resolution passed 128 – 9 but with 35 abstentions. There were 21 nations that did not show up for the vote. Supporters of the measure had been expecting 150 votes but the final tally “was significantly lower than its supporters had hoped for.” The AP also suggested that the number of nations not supporting the resolution was a “victory” for the Trump administration, whose threat to cut funding to nations opposing its recognition of Jerusalem had “an impact.”

The resolution was opposed not only by Israel and the United States, but by Guatemala, Honduras and Togo, the German broadcaster Deutsche Welle reported. Canada, Mexico and a number of Eastern Europrean countries, Poland, the Czech Republic and Romania all abstained. A number of African nations including Uganda, Cameroon, and Rwanda also abstained.

In her speech ahead of the vote, U.S. Ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley not only rebuked the UN for its anti-Israel bias, calling it “a hostile place for the state of Israel”, but also for targeting the U.S. “for the very act of exercising our right as a sovereign nation.”

Haley reiterated that the “United States is by far the single largest contributor to the United Nations and its agencies,” helping the UN “[produces] great good,” but that when, despite its contributions, the U.S. is “disrespected” in the UN, it might be time to “spend our resources in more productive ways.”